


Nature of the Beast

by ZaliaChimera



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Canonical Character Death, Contracts, Dark, Fae & Fairies, Folklore, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Moral Ambiguity, Morally Ambiguous Character, Mythical Beings & Creatures, One Shot, Sacrifice, Shapeshifting, Soldiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 14:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8848714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: AU in which the AI fragments are all fae, who have contracts with their Agents. But there are many ways for contracts to be fulfilled.





	

She’s leaning in the doorway, blocking entrance, when York gets there. That should have been her first tipoff. Ah, but she’s crossed a thousand thresholds, without incident. Why should this one be any different? She shrugs off the unease that ruffles her and smiles at him.

 

A smile that brittles with Delta’s appearance, the spirit hovering around York’s shoulder. It distorts his scent, warps the threads of fate which wrap around him so she can’t tell.

“I need your help,” she says. “Wyoming.”

There’s bad blood there. She can smell it, bitter like bile and stale beer. She can see it in the tightening of York’s one eye, the other scarred over, thick knots of silver teasing through flesh. It had never affected him as much as she thought it would. It seemed to amuse and frustrate him in equal measure. But she’d seen him staring at things before. Nothings which were out of human sight, or should have been. She’d never been able to tell if that was chance or something else.

Luck maybe. And luck is the cousin of fate.

York agrees. It takes more persuasion than she would have liked, but less than she expected, and York sleeps that night with the peace of the dead.

“What did you promise him Delta?” she asks.

The leipreachán shrugs, looks down at the mortal, asleep on the crude bed of pallets and ragged blankets. “I promised to grant his wishes. What else would I do?”

“I didn’t ask your function,” Tex says. Solitaries playing at being Court like it’s some kind of badge of honour to play games. She hasn’t the patience for it, or the inclination. She prefers to know her enemies and take them out with extreme prejudice. She doesn’t play with her food. There’s a hint of a growl in her voice when she speaks again. “What wishes did he ask for?”

Delta is silent for a few moments, form flickering like a will’o’the wisp, casting a sickly pallor over York’s face. It makes unease creep through her, but she shakes it off. “You know I can’t tell you. The rules…”

“The rules are bullshit.”

“Be that as it may, but they are the rules. We made a contract.”

“None of those contracts were made willingly.” They’d been told to make them and she’d been suckered into it.

“Most contracts are unwilling, on one side or another.”

Then the little bastard blinks out, settling back against the grooves and ridges of York’s soul. Tex knows she won’t get the answer out of him, and even if she did, she’d need a lawyer to decipher it. It’s not for her. She’s never needed a contract.

She does not sleep, and the moon turns York’s skin bone white, makes the scars glow like flaxen threads cut ragged from the weave.

———-

The first howl comes when they break into the facility. It bubbles up in her throat, like a sneeze, like the memory of sex, until it breaks free, washes over her, dragging the ground from beneath her feet and she can’t hold it back. She throws her head back and lets the sound come, an eerie noise and she can smell death in the air.

She glances over at York, can sense his unease, and she smiles, baring white teeth. Wyoming, she’s coming for you. Wyoming your time is over. Wyoming, the barghest is calling and you can’t outrun her anymore.

The second howl comes when his flunkies fall. Tex doesn’t fight it. It comes slick and smooth from her throat. She tastes blood on her tongue and their fading heartbeats are a drum tattoo driving her own.

 

Do you hear her Wyoming? Are you afraid?

A gunshot. Too close by. She takes aim, but the mechanism jams. For a moment she longs for the ease of teeth and claws and lightning, the scream of the hunt. Her form shimmers, wavers like hot air on asphalt.

York cries out and all is forgotten.

The third howl swells in her chest, seeps onto her tongue as she watches him fall, Delta’s glow surrounding him. She fights it, tries to force it down, back into her gut where instinct wars with knowledge, but it’s tasted blood tonight. She can’t fight her own nature. It bursts from her, a mournful sound that fills the air and silences gunfire, and drags heavy feet towards him.

He’s still breathing, but not for long. She can taste it, feel it in the air, the fade of his soul.

“York, you’re-”

“I’m okay,” he lies. “It’s that damn left side.”

“Agent York has sustained two wounds to his upper-left chest,” Delta supplies. Tex gives him a sharp look. There’s something in his voice, something anticipatory.

“I just need a minute!”

Delta’s glow increases, overshadowing his face. “I’m administering healing, an analgesic.”

York’s lone eye widens, he struggles. The scars on his face seem to glow. “Wait, Tex! Don’t let ‘im- I saw… the contract…”

He fights, and then goes limp. There’s a single thread left. He won’t survive. He was destined to die, the moment Tex approached him. She knows that now.

“My contract is fulfilled,” Delta says. “And you have a job to do.”

Tex blinks, lips twisted. She hates them. Hates every cursed one of them and their contracts and their rules. “What did he wish for, Delta?”

“Several things,” Delta replies. “Some have come to pass. Some will come to pass in due time.”

She lunges forward, knows it’s futile. “He’s dead! That’s not fulfilment!”

Delta looks at her. She knows that if he had an expression, it would be bland and hollow. “He wanted me to stop him being hurt. I delivered. And for the others… he never specified that he needed to be alive to see what he wished come to pass.”

Tex stares at him, tilts her head. She can’t quite tell whether it’s malicious or not. It’s his nature after all, as she has her nature and can feel it calling now. Maybe he cared. Maybe it didn’t matter.

“You have a job to do,” Delta repeats, and maybe she imagines the softening of his tone, the faint wistfulness that comes with it.

She growls, long and low, and sloughs her human skin until she stands there, massive as a horse and black as night. She shakes, lets her fur settle after years constrained. The spirits of the dead are always confused. It’s why things like her exist.

“Take care of him,” Delta says softly, as she waits for that last thread to break. 

She bares her massive teeth. Of course she will. It is her nature.

**Author's Note:**

> So in this, Delta is a leprechaun, while Tex is a Barghest/Cu Sith, a black dog spirit known to warn of impending deaths and sometimes accompany souls of the dead on to the afterlife.


End file.
